What are you reading this week of August 14, 2016?

[hermetic]

Darn, looks like I'm late celebrating National Book Lovers Day. But I did want to share with you something nice Jenny Lawson said about loving books on her blog: http://thebloggess.com/

...you can tell that I really love a book if I damage it thoroughly. I destroy it with my love. I shove it in pockets and carry it in purses and suitcases. I drip bathwater on the edges and get pollen stuck in the pages. I underline passages that remind me I’m not alone, and tuck receipts and slips of paper into places I need to reread. It is my opinion that a treasured book should not be kept in a box or wrapper. It should be used. And battered. And loved…just as much as the owner is, as they carry that book through their life. As they drag it through the rough spots. And as it drags them through the rougher spots.

So, this week I'm reading Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin, the second Inspector Rebus book. My library doesn't have it but I was able to locate a used edition at Thrift Books. Good one.

from Wikipedia:

Rebus finds the body of a drug addict, laid out cross-like on the floor, between two burned-down candles, with a five-pointed star painted on the wall above. As part of his investigation, Rebus finds a young woman named Tracy who knew the dead man and heard his terrifying last words: "Hide! Hide!"

I've just finished listening to Shadowfires by Dean Koontz. Meh. Now I shall start on The Body by Stephen King. Hopefully I will like it better.

What books are you loving this week?

[Spiggitzfan]

1. I am about halfway through...

I am about halfway through 'A Time Of Torment', the latest Charlie Parker mystery by John Connolly. I think there are 14 Charlie Parker books, starting with 'Every Dead Thing', & I have read most of them. I like them pretty much. Parker is a damaged former cop who went into private investigation. That much is expected, formulaic for this type of book. What makes the Charlie Parker books different is the absolute weirdness of the cases he gets involved in. Cults, right-wing fanatics, generations old feuds, towns with racist roots so deep that they entangle everyone around. There's a bit of horror, 'I see dead people' stuff too. And most books seem to build & build the tension, while filling the reader in on all kinds of interesting background info, until there's no way out for Parker but a giant gun fight. That kinda gets old. But the books themselves are riveting. And Parker's team, Louis & Angel... they are funny, loving, intelligent, & full of stories all their own. I wish that they were real because I would so like to meet them.
So I would recommend checking out author John Connolly. You won't be sorry.

[hermetic]

2. Wow, thanks!

Other than the gun-battle part, those sound really good, the kind of stuff I enjoy reading. And my library has half a dozen of them so they will definitely be in my future reading.

[hermetic]

3. Oh, and welcome to DU

We have a small group of readers here who post every week so I do hope you will join us for future discussions.

[Spiggitzfan]

4. Cool!

Thanks for the welcome & invitation. I would love to discuss books with you.😊

[Spiggitzfan]

5. BTW...

I love also Stephen King, so if you ever want to talk about his books or the Dark Tower universe, contact me here or on Twitter. Stevie is my jam!

[Hiraeth]

6. Put aside The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner to read -

Rewriting History by Dick Morris.

[shenmue]

7. "The Unremembered," Peter Orullian

Fantasy epic.

[japple]

8. Thank you for the thread, hermetic. Still reading Colson Whitehead's book

Underground Railroad and really loving this book and Whitehead's writing style. He does jump back and forth a bit, but it's not hard to follow the storyline. He also concentrates on just a few characters, so they are easy to keep straight. I highly recommend this book.

Our library has a traveling exhibit on loan for the next 3 months about Children's Literature of Appalachia. Though the focus is on children's literature, the Friends of the Library group decided to bring in storytellers, musicians, artists and historians in an effort to involve the whole community. I will be helping the children's librarian with story time on the day they read Mary Calhoun's book The Sweet Patootie Doll. This is for pre-schoolers, but the topic for discussion that day is schools. I found an old lard bucket and plan to fill it with biscuits and cornbread to show the children how school children in Appalachia carried their lunches to school in the "olden days" before school lunchrooms.

[Number9Dream]

9. Finished "Coyote Waits"; Started "Ceremony" by Robert B. Parker

Spiggitzfan, welcome to DU

I finished Coyote Waits by Tony Hillerman. I enjoy the visits to Navajo territory, and Leaphorn and Chee are always interesting. I thought the ending to this one was anti-climatic and disappointing.

Chronologically, Ceremony is an earlier Spenser book which I missed and I'm reading for the first time. I'm about 2/3 through. If you like the Spenser series, this is the usually enjoyable read... mystery with a sense of humor and good dialogue.

Also, I'm waiting for for an inter-library loan to come in.

[CrispyQ]

10. "The Improbability of Love" by Hannah Rothschild

The last 2-3 books I've read took place in WWII. The jacket of this book says it's wickedly funny, so I thought a change of pace would be nice. I'm about a third of the way through & it isn't wickedly funny, but it is interesting. A woman finds a painting in a junk shop & likes it & buys it. The human characters are all written 3rd person, but the painting is a POV character, too & is written in 1st person. Unusual, but it's working. I find myself really looking forward to the painting's chapters.

BTW, I'm looking for some good hit man stories.